Comic+Creation



My webcomic is about an event that happened on halloween night. The comic focuses on two characters who are siblings. The girl’s name is Jessica and the boy’s name is Mark. Both of them live in the same house which is shown in the first panel. The story in the comic takes place at their house. At 9:00 p.m., Mark tells his sister that he is going to sleep in Toronto on halloween in the kitchen. Jessica gets upset because she is used to spend halloween with her brother. Mark apologizes to his sister for not spending this halloween when he is leaving to Toronto. Jessica spends halloween night watching scary movies and giving trick-or-treaters candy. At 11:00 p.m., the doorbell rings while Jessica is watching a scary movie in the living room. She gets mad right after she hears the doorbell because she is bored from giving out candy to trick-or-treaters. Jessica opens the door to find no one then that leads her to start to worry. A man wearing a black mask, black pants, black gloves and a black sweat shirt. The man comes from behind Jessica and starts making scary sounds while holding a knife. Jessica turns around and tells him not to kill her. The man takes of his mask and tells her happy halloween. The man is her brother. Jessica gets mad and furious because her brother made a trick on her while he knows she is alone at the house.
 * __Narrative__**

My comic is created based on the concepts McCloud talked about in both “Understanding Comics the Invisible Art” and the online supplement on making webcomics. This comic is created in a strip format. First, I sketched the drawings by pencil then I outlined them using an archival ink pen. After, I scanned the drawings to make alterations in Photoshop then I pasted the drawings in the panels in Comic Life. I scanned and made alterations to the drawings of my comic in order to arrange them in a webcomic format. My comic has a coloured background for appearance purposes. Based on McCloud’s definition of comics, my comic is considered a comic because it has a sequence of multiple panels (McCloud, Understanding Comics the Invisible Art 9). My intended message is that the brother tricked his sister on halloween night. The following concepts will be discussed to describe the design choices of my comic: the gutter, closure, moments, lines, flow, images, words, word balloons and black linework.
 * __Analysis__**

The panels in my comic have spaces between them called “gutters” (McCloud, Understanding Comics the Invisible Art 66). Gutters were used in my comic to engage the reader in the narrative of my comic. Gutters engage the reader by allowing them to use their imagination through the process of closure to connect the panels in my comic in order to understand what the comic is about. The gutters allow the reader to apply closure to the comic which leads to the reader engagement in the comic.

Closure means completing something that is in complete based on your past experiences (McCloud, Understanding Comics the Invisible Art 63). Some panels include drawings that require closure to connect them. For example in the third panel where Mark is leaving the house, there is a word balloon pointing to someone who I did not show in the panel in order to let the reader use their apply closure to understand the panel. Basically, closure is used to engage the reader in the comic in order to enjoy and understand the comic. I also applied incomplete drawings in most of the panels to achieve my goals as comic artist and writer which are to engage the reader and make them understand my intended message.

My comic includes the following panel-to-panel transitions: action-to-action transition and subject-to-subject transition. The transition between panels 7 and 8 is an example of action-to-action transition. This type of transition is used to provide the reader a sense of action and movement in the comic. The transition between panels 8 and 9 is an example of subject-to-subject transition. This type of transition is used to let the reader creating a connection between the subjects, or characters presented (McCloud, Understanding Comics the Invisible Art 71).

My comic includes lines that represent a sound, or an emotion. In panel 4 and 5, lines are used to represent sound. In panel 10, thick lines are used to represent anger. The mouth in panels 7, 9, and 10 is drawn to represent the girl’s state of emotion.The flow of the comic goes from left to right because I made the comic similar to Western comics. The flow starts from panel 1 and ends at panel 10. The choices I have made for images, words, moments and frames play an integral part in the flow of my comic.

The drawings or images that are represented in the panels are cartoon like, but have some realistic details. There are some realistic details in order to some things that need to look a little realistic appear realistic such as the house which is displayed in panel 1. The characters are iconic and their clothes are also iconic. I chose to make the characters iconic as another way to engage the reader. Readers can identify themselves with the characters in a comic if they are iconic because this allows them to easily connect themselves with the characters in the comic which helps the reader in understanding the comic (McCloud, Understanding the Invisible Art 36). The interdependent combination between words and images is applied because most of the images in my comic require a connection with words in order to communicate an idea which is difficult to communicate by one of both without their connection (McCloud, Understanding the Invisible Art 155). The interdependent combination between words and images is applied. Word balloons are used for conversations, telling time, thoughts and displaying emotions. I used some rectangular word balloons to inform the reader of change in time between panels. Word balloons that had sharp edges all around display a character’s emotion. One word balloon is used to display a character’s thought.

Some webcomics apply black linework which is borrowed from print comics (McCloud, Making Comics 4). I applied black linework since people are familiar with it. I chose to make the brother’s costume black in order for it to stand out throughput the panels, so the reader can place their attention on that character. This comic is suitable for the Web because it has a simple format that Web users prefer. Basically, a webcomic should be made in a way that fits into the Web environment and that appeals to Web users which I tried to do while creating this comic.

McCloud, Scott. "Making Comics – Chapter 5 1/2." //Scott McCloud | Journal//. Web. .
 * __Works Cited__**

McCloud, Scott. __Understanding Comics The Invisible Art__. New York: Harper Paperbacks, 1994.